“No, Rufus,” Keanu crossed his legs and held up his hand from a chair in gate G 95, halting his dog with the command. “Relax, these ones you don’t eat.”

  Metal vocal cords growled as Rufus, barely constrained and seething in rage, sat back down and snarled into the empty gate. Thankfully it was easy to not use the Familiar Link after years of practice, and thankfully the old grouch still listened without using that the foul connection. The dog only wanted to protect him anyways. It’d taken years of constant pain to whittle it down to a thin thread, but he would force the command if necessary.

  Keanu scratched where essence enhanced steel met stubby brown fur to calm Rufus. Those spots were always the itchiest for the dog. For all his vast arsenal of Link based Skills, there was little he could do for the pup who had stood beside him a decade before the System arrived and still stood beside him now in that regard besides a simple scratching.

  Keeping him alive took a vast amount of essence. The first enhancement, all those years ago, when Rufus, powerful with Skills but still fifteen years and old for a dog, had been gravely injured defending him from traitorous Councillors trying to seize his Tax Guild Stone, had nearly driven Keanu into a genocidal rage. He wasn’t sure who he would have become if Rufus died. If he hadn’t Familiarized the dog, reformed damaged organs with [Being Weaver], and linked him directly to his Core to drip feed him life from his reserves. All the enhancements thereafter were necessary, of course.

  So he scratched the hot spots where his old dog gnawed and waited to see if the two young men would survive. It was nice to sit a moment with his pup and not extend his power that nearly drove him mad every day. The other Councillor’s hadn’t been happy he’d given up watch, heavily reliant on his abilities to monitor their seat of power, but it was protocol to defend against invasions, if one counted a pizza delivery as an invasion.

  He certainly had.

  “Nice to have a fucking break,” He laughed, excited at the sheer mundanity of a potential pizza. “It’s so quiet, Rufus. I don’t feel the Stone taking. I don’t hear them yelling. I don’t hear them laughing or screwing or explaining…I don’t feel them dying.”

  Rufus barked again, steel clapping against steel in a loud ring. So long they’d holed up in the old airport, only leaving for emergencies these days after years of leveling while his precious stone was left unprotected, that the dog thought every square foot of the place was their home. And it was, in a sense, even if Keanu only thought of Rufus as his home.

  Turning his massive skull that was half metal plating, Rufus looked at him with his old eyes and licked him once on the wrist, getting a bit of his trusty black suit covered in slobber. Least that still felt real. Keanu sighed as anxiety rose in his chest.

  Without using the Tax Guild Stone to enhance his powers, all in the name of public ‘safety’ the Council maintained against the chaotic System while ensuring their lavish lifestyles, the links he could scry were there. He could see them if he wanted. Slice and rearrange if he desired. But they weren’t forced upon him.

  Usually when he was plugged in, as his other Councillor’s liked to call it, and bitter joke it was, he blurred the links of everyone in Toronto into a single abstraction. He anonymized them to flatten the millions of lives into a bearable whole because the alternative meant he’d slip away. Arguments and desperate coupling, terrifying deaths in alleyways, unimaginable horrors walking right past families, and the many Dungeons his Tax Guild Stone enhanced Skills covered day in and day out. The Familiars screaming in cheap, plastic shells was what convinced him to whittle down his link to Rufus.

  It was just too plain useful, and the world was just too dangerous for him not to watch with [Plug In]. While he was plugged in and bearing their region, he could sense what Dungeons were bubbling up and if there were hordes coming from the outskirts. Millions of lives were at stake, and he was one of the reasons that Toronto was considered globally as safer than most places. Not constantly on the brink of collapse, at least, turned into chum for frothing Monsters from the wilds.

  Assign Credits and mark out the worst of it to the Adventurer’s Guild was in his control. The System liked that. Turn up the dial of tax Credit collection to build a war chest he could do. Reward strife amongst those who would take quests from the Adventurer’s Guild. For those who accepted brutal employment links, or abused their companion links, enslaved with familiar links, there was little he direct action he could take.

  He’d tried to tilt the scales. Assemble a unified force to protect more lives. Attempted to put boots on the ground and slay the vilest nonhuman and human actors. The ones that no matter what political leaning someone subscribed to, surely, the world would be better without them in it. He’d even tried to make it difficult for developers who wanted to shoebox and system link Credit transfer to financially enslave the burdened. The System, however, only rewarded its ways and punished accordingly when you strayed from its design.

  Push too hard and the System would spring up a disproportionally powerful horrors in retaliation. Powerful monsters in the basement of a children’s hospital. Portals to hellish planes right on the track of the subway. Food supplies in a quarter of the city would suddenly rot. Worst of all, it would embolden dangers on the outskirts of their region with a surplus of rewards or opportunities. It simply forced balance.

  The hordes were the worst of all in his mind, as unfortunately when you’re trying to protect a giant region homing millions and millions of people, at a certain point sheer statistics simply mattered.

  And something was certainly bubbling. Dangers lurked on the outskirts of Toronto. The links out there he sensed were strong, multiplying, and strange. All the Councillors anticipated something dark on the horizon, and even with their assortment of skills they couldn’t say exactly what. All they could do was charge people more tax to wave it in the face of swaggering Adventurers when the time came.

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  It was hard to see so much and still so little. The boys about to get gatecrashed by his Agents, however, he hadn’t seen coming. Strange for Keanu Bereaves, who could plug into the city and witness the matrix of webbing links.

  “I have a good feeling about this,” Keanu said to the dog. Rufus tilted his head in question, and smart as the dog was, he was pretty sure that the animal didn’t understand him. Maybe sometimes.

  “Not sure why. But it’s rare that my skills pick up this level of link protection. And it doesn’t feel…dark exactly. No one has made it past the turrets unscathed in years, and through the wall with a port ability? Two of them? Impressive. All for a pizza delivery and a note?” He barked a laugh himself. “I won’t [Peel All Connections] them apart from distance, ha-ha.”

  Rufus tilted his head the other way in another question.

  “No, I said so already. You won’t be eating them, either. No…no don’t look at me like that. We only eat the ones who want to harm us directly, remember? That’s allowed, it seems, and doesn’t cause it to push back. If we’re in a direct fight. These two don’t even appear to have attack skills, Rufus, and we just maintain the balance. If they are here, there is good reason for it.”

  He hadn’t felt excitement like this in years. A pair of runners inside of his heavily protected fortress, and he hadn’t a clue as to the purpose. It was typically easy to assess links. Those anonymous beacons dry humping over there, or those beacons of life throwing caution to the wind and diving a Dungeon or clearing out a horde for rewards. He’d gotten good at generalized strokes in the causation he could witness. Yet these two—

  A ping notification let him know that his [Agent]s had damaged one of his vehicles. He quite liked [The Expediter].

  “They’re not supposed to do that…” Keanu felt the twinges of rage settle in. Rufus began to growl again.

  Constructed and maintained with [Life Weaver], the Agents weren’t real or unreal. Keanu couldn’t decide and he didn’t know how the Skill worked in its entirety. Will and choice manifested as he shaped each one out of ridiculous amounts of Essence. Despite his power, each one left his Core bottomed out, and in its place was a compliant [Agent] who needed no food, nor water, nor stimulation at all. They didn’t have free will as far as he could tell, but they also didn’t make mistakes.

  One of them had just made a mistake, however.

  Rufus cowered from his human as Keanu activated another Skill. Taken out of his body to travel the many links connected to him, the possessor of the Tax Guild Stone used another function of his level 129 [Plug In] to zip over to the Agent that made a mistake.

  Over the drab, crumbling carpet and through the long hallways Keanu’s consciousness went to right something that he could control. That was the maddening part. He had so much power, and unless he went and directly fought it head on, the System pushed back. None of the Councillor’s had figured out that the System rewarded power for power’s sake, and the Guild Stones enhancements and purposes were protected within its framework.

  The dog soiled the ratty carpet and pressed himself down further. Rufus knew that his master would never hurt him, or hoped that he never would, but it was still terrifying to witness.

  Once he connected to the specific Agent, Keanu used the full force of [Peel All Connections] on the construct. The Agent didn’t scream as his being disintegrated, no longer held together, and turned to a slick stain on the tiled floor. At least that was one problem solved.

  On the way back to his own body, Keanu Bereaves smiled and readied his [Relative Guns]. The Skill pulled weaponry from somewhere and injected their usage directly into his brain while making them available to pull from his suit pockets.

  One could never be too careful when the unknown was involved. And the runners had caused an unknown.

  Opening a Title while sprinting toward gun-wielding guard was risky. Beyond risky, as a Title could be anything, and the effects were immediately applied once opened. They could be a permanent buff, which Alex hoped it was. They could also be a mutation, such as what happened the Jemin, or a change so drastic that you were forced to readapt. If that was the case it usually took weeks or months to get used to the changes.

  “Title! We…need…everything!” Brody snarled at Alex.

  But there were guards behind them, firing shots as Alex and Brody weaved. Guards were ahead too, yelling incessantly about halting in the name of Councillor safety. They raised their pistols as one to complete the death pellet sandwich.

  All for a favour to Nina and Nino and not even helping my Chosen One quest! He’s right, we’re fucked. I gotta risk it for the biscuit.

  “Cease your invasion!” Dozens of similar monotone voices yelled together.

  The pair did not cease, and Alex opened his last remaining Title just as the first flashes of muzzles fired to headshot them both.

  [Title: Relative Voyeur]

  [You’ve swam in the current of the River of Parallels. Thankfully you did not fight the force and nor possess the ability to collapse multiple planes. Please refrain from collapsing planes as each plane contains infinite beings that you would cease existence of. All balance must be maintained.]

  [Due to your Speed preference, when your link to your plane is at risk, slow your plane while remaining mentally unfettered to witness mortal risk. Choose or do not choose to resume at normal. Witnessing risk will never cease risk from existing or the outcomes thereafter.]

  Reality burred and downshifted around Alex. Everything seems to slow down as his mind continued to race and process the new Title.

  The flashes from the muzzles were still lit, like the guns spat little angry candlewicks. When he turned his eyes forward, his vision sparkled with purple flashes over the slow-motion reality, and looking back, he identified the specks of colour that reminded him immediately of portals. His legs still moved, but at a pace so slow it was barely perceivable. The only thing that seemed to move at normal speed was his eyes. And they had already picked out what his Title was trying to show him.

  A bullet inched through the air as if moving through molasses. It was slicked in purple opalescent energy. His heart hammered in his chest as he realized several things.

  Time moved slowly all around him. His Title was letting him see mortal risk. Just because he saw mortal risk, that didn’t mean he was immune to it, and based on the angles, a bullet was headed straight for his temple that would surely brain him.

  Fanfuckingtastic.

  As he reached instinctively to [Phantom Step] out of the way, his gut immediately tumbled out so hard he felt like he might vomit. He’d already figured he could identify the danger, and likely once he made his decision or died, reality would resume back to normal playing speed.

  But something was wrong. His gut was telling him so, and he’d learned to listen to the bloody thing.

  Looking around, he saw another flash of purple, so small he’d almost missed it. Even though his Title only affected him, Alex could see another bullet, and judging from its trajectory, it wasn’t coming to kill him.

  It was going to kill Brody. Get him right in the forehead. If anything, it was far closer than the bullet coming for him was, sliding through the air faster than they could move by foot. Quickly assessing with his field of vision, as his eyes could only move where they were supposed to, Alex formed a plan.

  He tried to yell something clever, but the slow-mo also worked on his vocal cords. Alex made his decision, and just as he did, reality resumed back to normal and the bullets came to drop them.